Some wireless communications systems employ code division multiple access (CDMA) protocols. CDMA systems may receive digital data, encode the data in one step and spread the frequency of the encoded data in a second step. The encoding and spreading steps in such systems may consume a finite amount of time and processing power, and the ability with which a resulting coded and spread signal can communicate the received digital data over a medium may depend on various factors, such as physical characteristics of the medium, available processing power, and process gain that is applied in the encoding and spreading steps.